I thought Friday was going to be like any other Friday. Get up, go to work, crochet like a madwoman on my breaks, come home, do some more crochet, maybe have a glass of wine. You know, the regular.
My innards decided today was going to be MORE EXCITING.
Those that are already familiar with me know that I am gluten intolerant. It’s not like racial intolerance — I really do LIKE wheat and bread and pasta and pizza crust and breaded fried chicken and… *sighs longingly*
I *love* them.
But they don’t love me anymore. 
So I have to stay away from them. And I do my best. But even an invisible smear of something with gluten in it can poison me all day, and apparently has done so once more.
We figure either a dish didn’t get fully washed (my dishwasher is 33 years old, and sometimes he can miss a spot. He still heats up like he’s supposed to, though!) or else I started kissing one of the cats right after they ate. It was probably the younger one; Dusk eats with such whole-hearted abandon that we often call him “food face”. And I think their food does have flour or something in it.
Bottom line, I think I was poisoned.
So I went to work, even though I was rumbling like a badly designed distillery.
An hour in, I knew the folly of my determination. And never am I more reminded of the fact that human beings are basically a coiled tube with 4 appendages and a brain, than when I have been “glutenated”.
Without getting gross, I was given sufficient evidence by my body that the course of wisdom would be to LEAVE work and go to a clinic and get a doctor’s note, even though I figured there was nothing that could be done.
So the nice girl at the clinic heard my list of symptoms, and very firmly told me (after the bulk of the appointment) that I should go to the Urgent Care clinic. I confirmed the location of the nearest one.
Now, I am no stranger to emergency rooms. There was a year (the same year I later discovered I was gluten intolerant, actually) that I went to the emergency room a record FIVE TIMES. I figured the intermediate step might be at least half as bad, with the wait and the boredom and the screaming small children. So we stopped by the house for me to load up on yarn and books before we went over to the grand ol’ UC.
I walked in and didn’t see anyone wearing a mask, which was great — with my crappy immune system, piggy flu would pretty much leave my bacon utterly FRIED. I didn’t see any children either, screaming or not; closest thing that might count would be the emo 16 year old in with his mom. We put in my information, and we paid the $45 copay, and we sat for an hour or so, and then amazingly we were escorted to a back room wherein I was weighed and measured and kindly asked whatever could be wrong with me.
And I told them. And they said, oh, we don’t do that here.
I said that the girl at the clinic thought they did.
And they said no, they don’t handle “abdominal pain” any more extensive than UTI’s, which I (thankfully) don’t have. Should I have a hurt ankle or a wound that needed stitching they were *definitely* my widget, but unfortunately in my current position they could do me no great service.
And then they politely returned my copay, and a nurse that was interested in my crochet work took a business card (Hi, Melody!), and the husband and I packed up and left.
All in all, I think that was the most pleasant ER experience I’ve ever had. I was not poked with anything sharp; I was not bombarded by screaming infants; I did not have to pay $100-$400 for the joy of waiting 6 hours to be seen by a random idiot who won’t listen to my concerns and who will occasionally shoot me full of MORPHINE without any sort of warning, not even an accompanying cigar. If they had cured my fibro and washed my car, I would be moving into a room there.
I think I’m okay now; glutenation is something to be endured, not cured. And I’ll go to the “real” ER should something else stupid happen with my intestines. But that’s my harrowing tale of woe. What’s worst? What with all the shenanigans and goings on I couldn’t get any serious knotwork done!
